Event overview
Department of Art Public Talks Programme Spring 2016 welcomes poet Steve Roggenbuck.
Contemporary Art Talks: Steve Roggenbuck
The work of poet Steve Roggenbuck explores, in his own words, “the new forms that poetry, humor, and spirituality might take on the internet.” Presenting and distributing his work almost exclusively through social-media platforms—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and YouTube—rather than through conventional literary channels, he harnesses the potential of the social web to transform the relationship between artist and audience. Roggenbuck's signature YouTube videos are often shouty, urgent diatribes with titles such as "make something beautiful before you are dead", recorded in fields and friends' bathrooms on tour. These videos were included in the 2015 New Museum Triennial in New York City, as well as the Oslo Poesifilm Festival for the past two years.
Roggenbuck was one of the central figures of the scene termed "Alt Lit", a sprawling online community of writers most active between 2011 and 2013, whose work took many forms from instant messenger and text message logs to essays, image macros, tweets and Tumblr blogs. Much Alt Lit writing has a vitality to it that is born of the internet itself, and is reflected in the name of Roggenbuck's joint publishing venture with E.E. Scott and Rachel Younghans, run out of a vegan co-op in Arizona. Boost House is both publisher and community-building exercise; "boosting" is their term for supporting and energising their fellow writers, artists, and activists. In 2014 they published The Yolo Pages, an anthology of more than 50 writers from the Alt Lit, "weird Twitter" and "flarf" scenes. Rather than trying to fit old forms to new technology, Roggenbuck and his peers bring the romantic intensity of poetry to new audiences and platforms online, freely sharing their experiments and encouraging others to join in.
https://www.youtube.com/user/steveroggenbuck
This event is free. No booking is required. All welcome.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 15 Feb 2016 | 5:30pm - 7:00pm |
Accessibility
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